Orlando Pirates' players have been left out of the Bafana Bafana squad to face Senegal in a friendly international in Durban on Wednesday.
“We have decided to exclude Pirates' players because they will be playing in Angola three days after our game,” Bafana Bafana coach Pitso Mosimane said in Durban on Thursday.
Orlando Pirates will play Recreativo do Libolo of Angola in their first-round African Champions League match.
Mosimane said they were left out so that they would focus on that game, and said it was important to support the national campaign.
“We have to support them because it is a national campaign. We know what happened in the South Africa when they won the league in 1996,” he said.
Mosimane apologised for criticising reporters for the stories they wrote after Bafana Bafana drew against Ghana.
“I need to clarify what happened. I should not have generalised because there were some journalists who wrote positive stories,” he said.
Mosimane lambasted the local football media for their reaction when a depleted national team played to a 1-1 draw against West African giants Ghana in Rustenburg.
“How many time have you guys written an obituary for me? How many times?” Mosimane asked at the post-match press conference.
“Everybody wrote an obituary for us before we started. Everybody saw us being slaughtered. Everybody wrote, 'they turned the game into practice matches, they're afraid, they're scared'.”
Mosimane said on Thursday his sharp response to media reports was caused by stress because of problems he had encountered when preparing for Bafana Bafana games.
There had been a withdrawal of players and some teams were unable to release their players for the national team.
“It was not fair for me to generalise. We need the media,” he said. – Sapa